The Pitfalls of San Andreas Pt. I

A GTANet.com Original Presentation

Rockstar's ever popular Grand Theft Auto franchise has truly proved something -- gamers are greedy, needy, and get anxious at having to wait. Given the gift of a sequel just a year after a truly groundbreaking game spoiled the community. So much so that when a year passed after the release of "Vice City" fans expected a repeat of the previous year. Many speculated about a scrambled sequence of numbers which were painted on a media helicopter in Vice -- saying the characters represented the date in which another sequel would be released.

It turns out that the speculation proved false and the date sprawled out in giant letters across the side of that helicopter was never met. No, "San Andreas" would be too ambitious a project for Rockstar to even think of having out as quickly as December, 2003. And that's what we've come to know ever since "San Andreas" was confirmed, how ambitious and grandiose it all was.

I'm here to tell you every way in which Rockstar can f*ck this game up.

Well, I've come to burst your bubble. All summer fan sites and professional publications alike have all been cramming the greatness that will be "San Andreas". Not a city... a state! And crammed with three massive metros with countryside, highway, desert, and a giant mountain nicked "Chilliad" all in between, no less. And that's not even the best part, each city in itself is the size of Vice City! Holy mackerel, Batman! Oh, Gosh -- oh, Jeez and you can even build and run your own casino! Your own casino! Yes, yes... much like that, only with the sophistication that an issue of OPM provides, of course.

In this article I'll explore what I have titled, THE PITFALLS... of "San Andreas". That caps lock effect was for dramatic purposes only, by the way. Basically, I'm here to tell you in every way I can think of, how Rockstar can f*ck this game up. What they can do to totally bomb. So, sit back, relax... grit your teeth like a fan boy, whatever. Read.

Now, I know what you're thinking... Clinton did it and now he's writing New York Times Best Sellers -- but we're not talking about a little white lie (white as in the stains on his mistress' dress), we're talking about the most heinous lie possible. We're talking about exaggeration to boost sales! AGH! I hear yah. But what do I mean by that? We've all heard Dan Houser (the brainchild behind GTA) ramble on about how great "San Andreas" is going to be, and how it's 4-6 times as big as Vice City. And w00t!

It is technically impossible for San Andreas to be SIX times the total size of Vice City.

Clearly stating the technologically impossible, we've also been told by different magazines things ranging from San Andreas being 6 times as big as Vice City, to Los Santos being the size of Vice City. What should we make of it though? What can we expect? Are we going to be disappointed?

The San Andreas map would technically be bigger, but in actual fact it will be a lot smaller than most people would think after reading the hype in magazines and such. The '4-6 times bigger' line is technically incorrect, given that VC was mostly water and a third of the world box was cropped with magic walls. Still, I was thinking of the entire bounding box being 4-6 times bigger, and I'm sure many other's did as well. Can you say 'PR nightmare once the real map is revealed'?" Yeah, I think he said it best.

What Rockstar actually means is that the land area (the area you can navigate, boats being an exception) will be about 4 times bigger than Vice City. So what this would entail is three cities, each about 3/4 the size of Vice City, and the rest for countryside and those small towns. Remember, we are talking about LAND AREA, not including water or fancy tidbits. It's not really all that it's been bloated to.

We see where the game is going. There might've been a little controversy about the street vibe that the released screens reek of at first... but all that nonsense subsided during the first influx of extremely promising information. However, shall we revisit the controversy?

No one would be disappointed with a gritty interpretation of the Grand Theft Auto franchise, ghetto style -- say if it matched the downright streetwise attitude of films such as "Boyz N the Hood" or of "Juice". But from what I gather from released dialogue samples... that's not too promising.

Ryder: "Man, what are you doing here?"
Carl: "Yo, im seeing my homie!"
Ryder: "Hey homie hey, its good to see you back, man."
Carl: "Oh, no homie love, no hug?"

Some might argue that's how a conversation with such "gangstaz" would really be... but not even the dialogue in "Friday" was that craptastic and clichéd.

Probably one of the greatest travesties that could be committed through the unfolding of the game's storylines is the lack of racial tensions. Rockstar might want to steer clear of such to keep their hands relatively clean (as clean as they could get after beating a hooker to death after busting her). But for the sake of art... why not use the cultural diversity of the Californian façade to their advantage?

It would be unthinkable for Rockstar to not exploit the issue of racial tensions.

You've got black, Hispanic, Asian, Italian, Indian (you know they gots their hands in the Casino rackets!), and homosexual... though homosexual isn't a race, you get the picture. And the aforementioned isn't even half of what we will probably see in the ethnic sectors of the state. To not use this as a device would be unthinkable, especially in a time and area where such tensions were prominent.

So, I've rambled on too long and only had time for three pitfalls. However, this is all true. Some issues on a bigger and more important scale than other issues, but all in all -- it would be a shame if these pitfalls proved true. Keep in touch for Pt. II coming soon.